“Is that what he told you two? You shouldn’t trust that snake. Just let me pass, or even help me honestly, and we can all make it out of here. Aren’t you sick of it? Being stuck in here? Don’t you want to be free?”
“No.1 said you’d say something like that! Even if I were to follow you, we would lose and get caught by the Hero! You think you can beat him?”
“We chose tonight because he’s not here right now.” I snarled at him, clenching my blade at his ignorance of the truth. “This place is far worse than you think. They’re creating…!”
“Shut up! I don’t wanna hear anymore! You’ve been hogging all of Zero’s attention lately, and I’m sick of it!” He yelled, stomping his feet on the ground.
“What about you?” I asked, staring at No.7. Will you not step aside?”
She fidgeted while looking at the floor, before looking at me with tired eyes.
“I…can’t control my gift. I have to take medicine to stop the pain. Mr. Doctor said that this is the only place that makes the medicine. If I….if I leave here, I’ll hurt more people. I have to listen to their orders, or else. So…” She said as her hair started lashing out. “Stay still!”
Before I could even blink, they each stopped moving and extended in a straight line at head-level around the room.
I quickly ducked as each tendril made cracks in the wall behind me.
“Gotcha!” A shrill voice screamed right in front of me.
I looked up and was met with a fist right in front of my eye. I had turned my face at the last second to dampen the damage, but the force was still immense. I got blown back a couple of feet and attempted to regain my balance until I heard the whizzing of air behind me.
I quickly turned around and crossed my blades in front of my chest, which barely blocked the tendril aimed at me. It didn’t have as much force as No.4’s punch, but it still wasn’t anything to laugh at. Blocking the attack propelled me to the ground, but no.4 was there waiting for me.
I turned to face him as I was landing on the ground, and he quickly disappeared from view.
“Scan!”
I could feel a congregation of particles behind me, and saw a trail of green and orange particles lead from in front of me to behind me in an arc. From where they were converging, I quickly spun to the left and avoided a quick punch from no.4.
“Huh?!”
In the same motion, I attempted to use my rotational momentum to stab him in the head, but right before it reached him, he jumped backward at lightning speed with labored breath.
“Haaa…..haaaaa…..No.7…..tag in!”
I felt particles enter my radius at a rapid speed behind me and deflected a tendril of hair with my katana.
“Take this!”
The tendrils came two at a time from multiple angles in front of me. One came to my left, which I quickly deflected with my knife, but once that one was stopped, another one came from a lower angle to my right.
I parried the left one away and jumped back to avoid the rising right tendril, but the second I did, one came at my solar plexus like an arrow and hit me square on. The tendrils functioned like a whip, and I was wearing a protective suit so it didn’t do much damage, but the pressure of the impact on a vital point left me stumbling and gasping for air.
Before I could even recover, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my right ankle, and turned around to see No.4 smiling.
I stumbled forward, and a tendril whipped me across the chest. Scan had turned off two seconds ago, and there was a three-second cooldown before I could use it again.
They’re not attacking me at the same time. It’s always one after the other. From what I’ve seen, No.4 attacks until he’s tired, and when he needs to recover, No.7 keeps up the pressure until he’s ready to use his speed again. However, using this strategy reveals to me two things.
- No.4 can only use short bursts of speed. And he can’t apply that burst to specific parts of his body, or he could have used it during his calf kick, even while stationary. What’s even more apparent is how low his stamina is.
- No.7 can’t control her hair very well. It may seem precise, but if she could control it well, then those two could attack at the same time. They always have to wait until he’s stationary.
Meaning if I align them in the correct positions…..
After getting hit, I quickly turned around and charged toward No.4. He looked surprised at my recovery time and quickly dashed backward.
“Ha…..no.7–!”
My knife flew like an arrow to his head, causing him to quickly react and use his speed again to dash to the left.
“AAAAAAGH!” No.7 screamed from behind me.
“Scan!”
I felt the tendrils enter my radius. There were four in total encroaching on me like a clawed hand. It was absolutely essential to get to No.4 as soon as possible, so I would need to take some hits. I dodged the first tendril by jumping to the right and continuing to run forward. The second one attacked my left side and broke through the protective gear, but I continued running toward No.4. He was panting and standing still, most likely in fear of no.7’s tendrils. I felt the third one come for my right side, and I used my katana to block it right before it reached me. It had only been a couple of seconds, but no.4 had seemed to regain a bit of his stamina as the final tendril flew directly behind me, aimed at my lower back.
I attempted to imitate his cocky smile as I ran toward him.
“You scared?” I questioned as I gave him a cocky grin.
“W-Who’s scared?!”
I saw the particles form around his feet as he sprinted toward me at a speed I couldn’t even follow. But…I didn’t need to follow it.
Right as he retorted, I jumped in the air and flipped backward. He foolishly charged at me in an attempt to tackle me with his full force, but instead ran straight into the tendril meant to hit me.
I charged him relentlessly to drain him of his stamina, and taunted him so he would abandon his fear of no.7’s tendrils. Using her lack of control, I chose which tendrils to take hits from and deflect or parry to gain distance, so her only option was for the last tendril to focus on distance and charge me in a straight line.
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It pierced his chest straight through, as his body twitched and shook while being held up by the tendril.”.
I didn’t mention this before, but both of them were wearing the same suit I was wearing. Normally, the tendrils wouldn’t be able to pierce this suit, but due to the speed at which he ran into the tendril, it bypassed it.
“N-N-No.4? T-This wasn’t my fault. This wasn’t my fault! Oh god! Oh god…!”
The shock from killing her partner caused her gift to spiral out of control. Her hair started whipping around violently and indiscriminately. She was holding her head and crying in pain, and the tendrils weren’t even near me anymore. They had protruded back to a couple of feet away from her head and were swinging rapidly in all directions. I could tell she was fighting for control over her gift, as she started grabbing her hair in an attempt to pull it off her head.
“It wasn’t me! Mom, Dad it wasn’t me! Don’t leave me! It wasn’t me! It wasn’t–!”
*BANG*
A singular shot rang out from the gun I stole from the facilitator from earlier, which went straight through her head. Without making a sound, she loosened her grip on her hair and fell to the ground, making all of the weaponized hair fall limp and return to its natural state.
I walked to the edge of the room and picked up my knife, putting it back in its holster. If No.4 was still alive, the violent outburst from No.7 snuffed out any hope of that out. When I looked over at his body, there were multiple gashes extending from the initial piercing wound. His lips were dry, and his eyes were dull. He was no longer of this world. I knew almost nothing of No.4, except that he had awakened to his gift here.
I walked by No.7’s corpse as I left the room. Her existence was a sad one, if nothing else. From what I had gathered by seeing her, she had awakened to her gift before coming to this facility and had most hurt the people close to her. Driven mad by her own gift, forced into a battle of constant control, she must have been in immense pain every day.
As I was reflecting on their lives, I felt an eldritch presence all around me. It was sickening, and I felt like hundreds of spiders were crawling on my skin.
Feeling bad?
I could feel where the voice was coming from this time. I turned around and saw a dark, smiling entity staring at me, right by No.4’s corpse.
No….it’s no longer an entity.
I wasn’t sure if it was because of my innate sight granted to me by my gift, but the entity had taken a form. As it stepped forward toward me, walking closer and closer until it was right up to my face, its form became clearer and clearer. Until its shadowy aura completely faded, and what stared at me with a cynical smile and vibrant eyes…..
Was me.
We stared at each other, with the same body but two completely different expressions.
“When did you start feeling bad for people you’ve killed? That girl’s really done a number on you, huh?” My doppelg?nger scoffed, shrugging and looking away from me.
“I don’t feel bad. I was giving their struggle purpose. Upon their death, at least someone should remember them.” I explained, narrowing my eyes in his direction.
“And you think it should be their killer? Do you think of yourself as a saint because you felt a slight tinge of remorse after mutilating them?” He laughed mockingly.
“That’s not what happened.”
“It doesn’t matter how it happened…..it happened.”
“Enough. What do you want?” I snapped, crossing my arms.
His cocky smile disappeared as he took a menacing step closer and grabbed my collar.
“No…..what do you want?! You call upon me every time you have a little emotional spat! Even now, you called me. Do you think I show up just to make a mockery of you? It’s you.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Have you still not realized it yet? Each time you’ve called upon me, your psychological state has been highly unstable.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you’re me? I must be going insane.” I said, pushing him off of me.
“You already are insane. And no, I’m not you. I am a manifestation of your inner psyche, given form by your mess of an ability. You can think of me as a mix between your conscience and your gift.”
“Ever since that day in our homeland, that interloper in our body has been tampering with your powers and psyche. The reason why your gift hasn’t fully awakened, and the reason why your psychological state is such a mess, is because of that interloper.”
He turned around with a furious look on his face and stared me dead in the eyes.
“He keeps suppressing me…..suppressing us! You’ve already met your condition for awakening ten times over, but every time it’s about to happen, he steps in! I want to go wild! I want to run free! When you were tortured, and when you killed those fools in the stadium, he stepped in both times and locked my powers away! Then he brought it back against that flaming chicken for one moment, only to take it away again. Do you know how hard it is to be contained in your feeble little body? I need to let loose!”
“So you crave carnage? Is that it?”
“Carnage? I just want to be free. You have no idea what it feels like to be trapped in an ever-constricting box that you yourself are far larger than! If anything, you’re the one who craves carnage; all I am is a manifestation of your psyche given form by your ability. I am you, but I’m not you. I am your power, but I’m not your power. It’d be easier to think of me as a part of your soul that got locked away.”
“You expect me to believe that my own soul is talking to me?”
“The soul isn’t as simple as you think. It’s not just your spirit form or your emotions; it is your entire being. Your memories, experiences, powers, choices, beliefs, physical and mental ability, relationships, and life all form what is called a soul. If even a small part of that is taken away, you lose what makes you a person. I am just a small part of a bigger mirror that reflects your entire being.
“Well, which part of the soul are you?”
“.....Your powers.”
“If he locked you away, then why am I able to use EMP and Scan?”
“Partly because of that girl. I don’t know what she did, but after interacting with her, your mind became less clouded by his influence, and a lock became undone. But it’s mostly due to that rift in space you encountered. The energy coursing through us was something we’ve never even felt before! It forced open the already cracking seal.”
This was all too insane to even process. One part of me thought I was just going insane, but the other part of me knew that voice I heard during my fight with Zagra and the monster was not a voice that came from me. It was something else, regardless of if i’m insane or not, I need to find out the source.
“What happened on the day the interloper came? You said on “That day” as something important happened, but I don’t remember any days of note back in my homeland before I was taken here.”
“Do you really not know?” He asked, squinting his eyes at me.
“Why do you think I asked? Tell me what happened.”
“On that day, you—”
He suddenly held his head and took a step back.
“Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it! Not again! I’ll get you out of our body if it’s the last thing I do!”
“What’s–?”
“Shut up and listen! Do you think all you can do with your powers is your little scan and disruption? You can’t interact with the particles because you’re not on the same wavelength. Next time you get in a fight, just think for a moment! How can you move something you can’t touch?”
As he spoke, he began to fade away and smiled cynically.
“I’ll always be there….watching. You’re on the brink of a turning point, and I’ll be ready when it happens. You’ll face the truth, and it will burn you more than any flame. Once that happens, I’ll be awaiting your call…….
Monster.
He faded away completely, as he had never been there in the first place.
Was that all in my head? That felt far too real.
I grabbed my collar and looked at it, and was surprised to see strain and scuff marks on the base of it.
“He was here.” I whispered, lightly holding my collar.
It seems I wasn’t going crazy, and my ability manifested in physical form before my very eyes.
…..
What is happening to me?
I stood still for a moment, trying to process everything, until I began walking down the now unguarded corridor.
“Regardless of the recent events, it doesn’t change the fact that I need to get out of here and meet up with Zero. Let’s press onward.”
I continued walking until the darkness of the unknown enveloped me completely.